2.My Life In A Brahmin Family by Lizelle Reymond. Translated from the French by Lucy Norton. Rider and Co. London. 1958.

3.To Live Within by Sri Anirvan and Lizelle Reymond, introduction by Jacob Needleman. Morninglight Press. 2007.

DR PRITHWINDRA MUKHERJEE, CHEVALIER DES ARTS ET DES LETTRES

GOOD NEWS!

16:38 HRS IST New Delhi, May 27 (PTI) The study of biography of freedom fighter Jatindranath Mukherjee not only provides an insight into his life and times but a glimpse of India's struggle against colonial rule, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said today as he unveiled a book on the revolutionary leader.

'Bagha Jatin -- Life and Times of Jatindranath Mukherjee', written by the minister's grandson and Paris-based scholar Prithwindra Mukherjee, has been brought out by the National Book Trust, which is also coming out with biographies of Bengal revolutionaries Surjya Sen and Kalpana Dutta soon.

"The story of Bagha Jatin as it unfolded in this book is mesmerising. Not only it gives a glimpse of the life of the ardent revolutionary who challenged the mighty British rulers but also analyses the history of armed struggle against the colonial rule at that time," the minister said.

ANOTHER PLEASANT SURPRISE!!!
The National Book Trust has brought out the biography BAGHA JATIN by Dr Prithwindra Mukherjee in its National Biography series. Here is the Foreword by JACQUES ATTALI. -
A Fascinating Thesis

No one leaves this great book by Prithwindra Mukherjee, unaffected by it.
It is the work of a great intellectual, sociologist, writer, musicologist; a thesis begun under Raymond Aron and completed under Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, supported by the biggest shots of French university, like Annie Kriegel. A wonderful instance of the quality of a university, which can welcome within its fold someone coming from somewhere else and offering to France - in exchange - more than what she has given him.
This fascinating book constitutes first of all a passionate tribute to a grandfather, activist and martyr, whose place in the history of India has not been recognised as it deserved to be, in the front rank of the freedom fighters; simultaneously with a look for details, lucid, distancing itself, concerning a period very little known, that which, at the bend of the 19th to the 20th century, opens before India the path leading to the awareness of her identity, and the necessity of her fighting for independence.
For too long a lapse, indeed, people have wished to think that Gandhi's non-violence had been enough to drive out the armies of the colonizer. That is not true. Before Gandhi succeeded in animating the vast social movement of the 1930s, there had been the great intellectual movement of Aurobindo, of Bagha Jatin, and of all those who strove by their side, at times up to death, enabling India to become aware of herself.
This book is essential for understanding what today's India is, even in her violence, and to put back in their due - the first - place, all the dreamers who, from Aurobindo to Tagore, from Gandhi to Patel have trodden diverse paths leading her to independence, in its diversity.
It is essential as well for understanding the very special role that intellectuals played in all freedom movements, in India and elsewhere. And first of all their role in kindling the perception of the national idea, often artificial, often imaginary : here, Mr Mukherjee explains very well their driving power and the conditions of their crystallisation.
Essential, at last, for understanding the role of intellectuals in History, so often carried off by the consequences of their ideas, swept out, chased away, censored, by the very persons who implement their concepts.
Become, by fluke of history, an exceptional musicologist and a great poet, having been set to music by the greatest musicians of our time, the author of this book reminds us that humanity is one, that music, poetry and politics are mere dimensions among other than human condition, and we have as yet much more to learn from India. Let France take advantage of it and establish relations necessary for our future.
- Jacques Attali

THE INTELLECTUAL ROOTS OF THE INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT IN INDIA -1893-1918
by DR PRITHWINDRA MUKHERJEE
with a Foreword by Jacques Attali

The independence of India in the Western collective imagination seems to have the father figure of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. However, The Mass Movement launched by the Mahatma from 1919 was not born from nothing. For a long time, indeed, we have omitted an intense creative period which preceded him; it is the fundamentally radical program of Indian Revolutionaries of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century which was in complete contradiction with the battle of Gandhi with the zeal of non-violence.
In this well-researched book which is his doctoral thesis of state headed by Raymond Aron and supported under the chairmanship of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie 1986, Mukherjee makes us to see the philosophical, historical and religious aspects, in short, the intellectual aspect of Indian nationalism. From Rammohan Roy to Sri Aurobindo-through Karl Marx and Rabindranath Tagore, the whole corpus of Indian nationalism’s ideological influence is analyzed by the Author, and in light of this culture it has a centuries-old history.
Hitherto largely ignored, an overview of the activities of revolutionaries in India as one of their networks incorporated outside the country (England, Russia, Germany, France, USA and several Asian countries ...) is also revealed for the first time. To destabilize the English yoke, Radical Nationalists did not hesitate, "during the First World War, to turn to William II and Germany, pursuing a policy of logistics, directly relating to the Middle East, who gave them special attention.
Supported by many archives which are inaccessible till today, there are unpublished personal papers or direct interviews with the protagonists of the Movement. The Work of Mukherjee Prithwindra is undeniably a major contribution to the historiography of India.
Author: Prithwindra Mukherjee,
Preface by Jacques Attali
Some fifty illustrations

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IMPORTANT NOTICE!!!
SRI PRITHWINDRA MUKHERJEE HAS RECEIVED THE AURO-RATNA AWARD.

We are all so proud of Sri Prithwindra. I am sure our members of ANIRVAN AKASH join me in congratulating him on the most well-deservd recognition of his great contribution to the arts.

The ‘Auro-Ratna Award’ for the year 2011 will be given to Shri Robi Gupta, Dr. Kireet Joshi and Dr. Prithwindranath Mukherjee for their outstanding contribution in the field of literature, education, philosophy and research.

Dr. Prithwindra Nath Mukherjee (b. 1936) is the grandson of the famous revolutionary Jatindranath Mukherjee alias Bagha Jatin. He came to Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1948, studied and taught at Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education.

He was mentioned by the Sahitya Akademi manuals and anthologies as a poet before he attained the age of twenty. He has translated the works of French authors like Albert Camus, Saint-John Perse and René Char for Bengali readers, and eminent Bengali authors into French.

He shifted to Paris with a French Government Scholarship in 1966. He defended a thesis on Sri Aurobindo at Sorbonne. He served as a lecturer in two Paris faculties, a producer on Indian culture and music for Radio France and was also a freelance journalist for the Indian and French press. His thesis for PhD which studied the pre-Gandhian phase of India’s struggle for freedom was supervised by Raymond Aron in Paris University.

In 1977 he was invited by the National Archives of India as a guest of the Historical Records Commission. He presented a paper on ‘Jatindranath Mukherjee and the Indo-German Conspiracy’ and his contribution on this area has been recognized by eminent educationists. A number of his papers on this subject have been translated into major Indian languages.

He went to the United States of America as a Fullbright scholar and discovered scores of files covering the Indian revolutionaries in the Wilson Papers. In 1981 he joined the French National Centre of Scientific Research. He was also a founder-member of the French Literary Translators’ Association. In 2003 he retired as a researcher in Human and Social Sciences Department of French National Centre of Scientific Research in Paris.

A recipient of ‘Sri Aurobindo Puraskar’, in the same year he was invited by Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra for the world premiere of Correspondances, opus for voice and orchestra where the veteran composer Henri Dutilleux had set to music Prithwindra’s French poem on Shiva Nataraja, followed by texts by Solzhenitsyn, Rilke and Van Gogh. In 2009 he was appointed to the rank of chevalier (Knight) of the Order of Arts and Letters by the Minister of Culture of France. He has penned books in English, Bengali and French and some of his published works include ‘Samasamayiker Chokhe Sri Aurobindo,’ ‘Pondicherryer Dinguli’, ‘Bagha Jatin’, ‘Sadhak-Biplobi Jatindranath’, ‘Undying Courage’, ‘Vishwer Chokhe Rabindranath’, ‘Thât/Mélakartâ : The Fundamental Scales in Indian Music of the North and the South’ (foreworded by Pandit Ravi Shankar), ‘Poèmes du Bangladesh’, ‘Serpent de flammes’, ‘Le sâmkhya’, ‘Les écrits bengalis de Sri Aurobindo’, ‘Chants bâuls, les Fous de l’Absolu’, ‘Anthologie de la poésie bengalie’ and ‘Les racines intellectuelles du movement d’independence de l’Inde (1893-1918)’ ending up with Sri Aurobindo, “the last of the Prophets”.

.Dr. Prithwindra Mukherjee (b. Calcutta, 1936) is a poet, historian, musicologist, translator (Bengali↔ French↔ English), author of more than 50 books, 12 LPs/CDs, 2 Documentary films. He has done more than 100 hours of features broadcast on Radio-France. Awarded a French Government Scholarship (1966-1970) and Fulbright Scholarship (1981), Prithwindra has also served as Research Fellow, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris (1981-2003); Lecturer : University Paris III-INALCO and University of Paris-XII (1974-1981); Chevalier in the Order of Arts & Letters (2009). Bengali readers remember him for his translations of Albert Camus, St-John Perse, René Char. Prithwindra also writes in French. His French poetry has been translated into about a dozen languages.

A fascinating interview with Dr Prithwindra Mukherjee conducted by Sunayana Panda and printed in Golden Chain, the Alumni Journal of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, August 2009.

We learn the immense genius and capacity of this noble gentleman, and his gentle humour and wit, his struggle and unrelenting hard work against many odds, his love and appreciation for the arts, and his full admiration and love for the Mother. There are some beautiful photographs taken at various stages of his life which lend even more interest to the article.

To read the interview, please right-click on and open in a new window GoldenChainPrithPages15.pdf

GoldenChainPrithPages611.pd

- TWO CARYAPADAS TRANSLATED BY SRI PRITHWINDRA MUKHERJEE

caryapadasbySriPrithwindraji.docx

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BAULS - GYPSY SINGERS OF BENGAL

Sri Anirvan often described himself as a Baul. in fact one of his books is entitled LETTERS FROM A BAUL. Through their songs, Bauls seek to be free even from the human body, which they consider no more than a pile of bones and flesh.

Each year, in mid-January, several thousand saffron-clad wandering minstrels or Bauls – the word means simply "mad" or "possessed" in Bengali – begin to gather in the flat flood plains 100 miles to the north of Calcutta. It is the biggest gathering of tantric musicians in the world. As they have done on this site for 500 years, the Bauls wander the huge campsite, greeting old friends, and smoking copious quantities of ganja. Then, as the night draws in, they gather around their fires, and begin the singing and dancing that will carry on until dawn.

Throughout their 500-year history, the Bauls of Bengal have refused to conform to the conventions of caste-conscious Bengali society. Subversive and seductive, wild and abandoned, they have preserved a series of esoteric spiritual teachings on breath, sex, asceticism, philosophy and mystical devotion. They have also amassed a treasury of beautifully melancholic and often enigmatic teaching songs which help map out their mystic path to inner vision.

SMT KALYANI BOSE, SUDIPTA MUNSI, COFFEE HOUSE ON COLLEGE ST

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SMT KALYANI BOS

So at last! we have Pather Sathi, Volume 1, and Extracts from Patram Pushpam By Sri Anirvan, translated into English by Kalyani Bose and so generously and kindly given by her for publication on Anirvan Akash (copyrights retained by her)

Pather Sathi, Vol. 1, translated by Smt Kalyani Bose, is to be found in PDF form on the Sri Anirvan's Works Page.

Akash Bhavna:

To start with, one thing should be clear. Happiness is not the same as Ananda. Happiness (sukha) depends on the interaction with outer objects whereas Ananda is purely subjective-sprouting forth by itself from the depth of the inner being.

A Saiva philosopher defines Ananda as extreme relaxation-(Ananda Vishrantih). A Yogi expounds- relax all efforts, release consciousness into the infinity and feel the undisturbed sense of innate delight in each and everypart of y our being. That is Ananda.

The Rishi of Upanishad named it "Bhuma" -expansiveness- and drew a close connection with Akash.

"Had Akash not encompassed us as Ananda', he added, "who would have breathed, who would have even lived?"

This Akash has entered every heart, built a tiny seat of lotus and from there has expanded beyond 'Dyavaprithivi' earth and heaven.

We have to feel this essence of unconditional Ananda; we have to realize Akash-the Ananda Brahma.

(Yoga Samanvaya page (328)

Dear Sri Sudipta,

I had heard about you from Ramadi in Kolkata and was aware of your brilliance and depth of knowledge. Today I experienced that. To me, no matter how much I love him,Sri Anirvan is not a name, nor a form not even a great Yogi- but he is a Consciousness - as pervasive as the Akash- and that is tangible- one can feel that in day to day life if one opens up a little bit to that Akash. The excerpts are so aptly translated that I was reminded again and again of the original Bengali expressions. I liked your calling him a Sadguru in initiating us in Akash Bhavna. May the Anirvan consciousness be ever with us.

P.S. This may not serve as a proper review. I reallly am not that knowledgeable. All I can say is that I enjoyed it very much and wish you all the success in expounding the Anirvan thoughts.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Namaste,

My name is Kalyani Bose and I am a resident of New Jersey, USA. I am simply thrilled to see that at long last some one has taken the initiative to make known such a Rishi-Yogi as Srimat Anirvanis through internet. No words can ever express the depth of his Divine Knowledge.

The three volumes of his Veda Mimansa are epoch- making and a priceless legacy to us. Mm. Lizelle Reymond, Who considered him as her guru, has given a detailed picture of his Rishi like personality (actully she has referred to him as Rishida in a couple of places) in her two books- "My life with a Brahmin Family" and "To Live Within." The letters in the later volume are awe-inspiring and will help any Seeker of Truth.

Ms. Rama Choudhury, his most noted disciple is still working to spread the Anirvan Consciousness by publishing his books through Haimavati Prakashani, the zenith being the six volumes of "Gayatri Mandala" a commentary on the Third Mandala of the Rig Veda which he composed while in Almora.

In the early childhood he was blessed with the darshan of the Divine Vedamata as a six-year old, whom he named Haimavati as in the Kenopanishad. He has mentioned times without number that since then She had been the main source of his nspiration and activities. Wherever he lived- be it in the foothills of the Himalayas in Almora or Assam or the densely populated Kolkata streets- his residence was always within the loving embrace of his Haimavati.

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We are most grateful to Sri Sudipta Munsi for his valuable contributions.

Sudipta is a student at Calcutta University, doing his Bachelor Of Arts degree in History. He is only twentyone years old. HIs enthusiasm and erudition are remarkable and laudable.

Translations of Sri Anirvan's Letters by Sudipta Munsi can be seen here -

SriAnirvansLetterstranslated.pdf

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ATTTENTION DEAR MEMBERS!

You will find some of SRI ANIRVAN'S works here, which have been written from notes taken by Sri Gautam Dharmapal, one of Anirvanji's oldest disciples, a few are translated into English, and some were printed after his death.

WE ARE IN SEARCH OF TRANSLATORS, as there are over thirty of his works in Bengali, which translated into English and other languages will make Sri Anirvan's wonderful and simple philosophy available to SO MANY more people.

We have the extremely intellIgent and talented SMT KALYANI BOSE who has translated a volume of Pather Sathi, and a lot of other letters from Gitanuvachan and other books, and is presently working on Patram Pushpam. She is an ardent devotee who has given so much of her valuable time in spreading the teachings of Sri Anirvan. You will find some of her works on the Main Page, along with her photograph. Her literary style is facile, apt and eminently readable.

We have the versatile and eloquent SUDIPTA MUNSI, who although a young student is so gifted as to make beautiful and exact literary translations of Sri Anirvan's letters. His translations are here on ANIRVAN AKASH.

Another devotee whose writing style is wonderfully depictive and erudite is Sri Gautam Bhattacharya. His translation of ONE of Sri Anirvan's letters stands alone as an evocative piece, instantly drawing on so many creative realms of philosophy, literature, Vedic ritual and tradition, and music. Unfortunately his health does not permit him to carry out any more translations.

Our indefatigable SRI GOUTAM DHARMAPAL, on the verge of ninety years old, staunch and persevering disciple of SRI ANIRVAN, carries on alone, gathering notes, translating from Gujarati (his mother tongue) to Bengali, and again to English, and publishing enough material from SRI ANIRVAN'S talks to publish SIX more books, is to be lauded for his dedication and intensive hard workr. All praise and credit to him!

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THE COFFEE HOUSE AT COLLEGE STREET, CALCUTTA, NEXT TO SRI AUROBINDO PATH MANDIR

Sri Anirvan would come and give series of lectures on "Savitri," the Vedas and the Upnishads at the Aurobindo Path Mandir right next door to the Coffee House. Situated at the heart of the literary world, the Coffee House of Calcutta is a landmark that is familiar to every Calcuttan. The history of this prestigious building dates back to 1876 when the Albert Hall was founded. Later the coffee board started the Coffee House in 1942. It gradually became a meeting place of people from the world of arts and culture. The patrons could be broadly divided into two groups – those who patronised the House of Lords and the others who frequented the House of Commons. The Lords went to the upper floor and the commoners remained downstairs. The uniformed bearers would run from table to table taking orders or serving them. They knew the regulars and took special care for them. The atmosphere was always noisy – still, people spoke and could be heard through the din. There never was a quiet moment. The Calcutta Coffee House is a landmark that is familiar to every Kolkattan – located in the proximity of the Calcutta University, the Presidency College, the Hare School, and the Sanskrit College, it is right in the heart of the literary world - bookstalls line ether side of the College Street. There are large publishers with small and medium sized ones who rub shoulders with innumerable shops that make a living by selling old and rare books. Here under the high flapping ceiling fans and within the fading mildew covered brown walls sat tragic young writers with fragile egos; the air was thick with philosophical rantings. Albert Hall, as the place was known before the present sobriquet was bestowed by the Central Government, was already a favourite with Rabindranath Tagore and Subhash Chandra Bose and could boast of a legacy of swadeshi meetings. A place that had carved out a niche for itself as the most popular adda was thus the easiest choice for the promotion of coffee in a city till then an excellent market for tea. Smoke from countless cigarettes spirals up to the ceiling as people drink their coffee with an accompanying glass of cold water, reading newspapers while eating samosas . Elderly turbaned waiters in faded white uniforms drift from table to table. Everyone knows about Calcutta’s love for talk especially about exalted topics from Dosteovsky to food and Indian cricket and the songs of Tagore. The Coffee House of Calcutta has had the honour of seeing the emergence of literary figures who are household names today. It used to be the meeting place for those who tried their hands at penning prose or poetry. The promising ones got willing listeners who listened in rapt attention and commented – all over a cup of coffee. Then there were the little magazine crowd who took to printing their own works because no one else wanted to give them the breaks. These young hopefuls harboured thoughts of one day rising up to the level of the established ones. And, one just cannot ignore the ones who sought each other’s company for brief moments in between regular classes – to share their innermost feelings and profess love. The Coffee House was the gateway to freedom; it was a way of life for the collegians.
The wonderful song by Manna Dey really takes one back in time to those carefree days at the Coffee House, when dreams were woven and broken, when the leading lights of Bengali literature, cinema, arts and politics spent hours discussing and debating various matters. It was a place steaming with gossip, curiosity, political intrigue and slander.
Satyajit Ray would dream up films here, while many a writer consumed coffee beneath its vaulted arches. Noise, gossip and cup-carrying waiters seethed between the writers and their subjects.
All the literary giants and household names came here, but the days of intellectual revelry have gone.

-Quoted from articles by P.Ghose and A.Mahajan

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WELCOME TO MEMBERS!!!

We sincerely apologise that we cannot have any more members than 150, according to the rules of the NING Network.

However now all our works by Sri Anirvan and others can be read by everyone who wishes to do so.

We apologise to the following spiritual people who applied for membership but whom wenow cannot accept.

On 29 March 2013 Overman Foundation has published its new book
‘In Quest of the Cosmic Soul’ authored by Dr. Prithwindra Mukherjee,
eminent historian, researcher, musicologist who is the recipient of the
prestigious ‘Sri Aurobindo Puraskar’ and *Chevalier dans l’ordre des
Arts et des Lettres* (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters).
This anthology is a selection of Dr. Prithwindra’s writings written between 1955 and 2012, thus, covering a span of almost six decades. It includes
along with several of his articles written on a varied range of subjects—biographies (written under the pseudonym of BobClive for Wikipedia), short stories, reviews, translations and a drama penned by him.
Some major attractions of this volume are his unpublished articles on Anilbaran Roy (1890-1974), the erstwhile member of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Swami Vivekananda (written on the occasion of his 150th Birth Anniversary) and music (*Towards a New Tonal Music*) as well as his reminiscences of Pandit Ravi Shankar (1920-2012), the great sitar maestro, who passed away very recently. Through this volume an attempt
has been made not only to reintroduce the reader to the multifaceted
genius of Dr. Prithwindra but also to introduce the ‘complete
Prithwindra Mukherjee’ to all those readers who primarily know him as an
erudite historian.

‘In Quest of the Cosmic Soul’ comprises of 463 pages and is available at a price of Rs. 595 (Five Hundred and Ninety Five) only.

To place an order, please write to the following email address:

On 29 March 2013 Overman Foundation has published its new book
‘In Quest of the Cosmic Soul’ authored by Dr. Prithwindra Mukherjee,
eminent historian, researcher, musicologist who is the recipient of the
prestigious ‘Sri Aurobindo Puraskar’ and *Chevalier dans l’ordre des
Arts et des Lettres* (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters).

This
anthology is a selection of Dr. Prithwindra’s writings written between 1955
and 2012, thus, covering a span of almost six decades. It includes

along with several of his articles written on a
varied range of subjects—biographies (written under the pseudonym of
BobClive for Wikipedia), short stories, reviews, translations and a
drama penned by him.

Some major attractions of this volume are his
unpublished articles on Anilbaran Roy (1890-1974), the erstwhile member
of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Swami Vivekananda (written on the occasion of
his 150th Birth Anniversary) and music (*Towards a New Tonal Music*) as
well as his reminiscences of Pandit Ravi Shankar (1920-2012), the great
sitar maestro, who passed away

very recently. Through this volume an attempt
has been made not only to reintroduce the reader to the multifaceted
genius of Dr. Prithwindra but also to introduce the ‘complete
Prithwindra Mukherjee’ to all those readers who primarily know him as an
erudite historian.
‘InQuest of the Cosmic Soul’ comprises of 463 pages and is available at a price
of Rs. 595 (Five Hundred and Ninety Five) only.

***************************************************************

IMPORTANT NOTICE!!!
SRI AMAL BOSE, a wonderful man and esteemed husband of Smt Kalyani Bose who is our superb translator of Sri Anirvan's books and also honoured member of ANIRVAN AKASH, passed away on April 10, 2013.

Our heartfelt condolences to Smt Kalyani Bose and family. they are related to Gouri di Dharmapal.

We know his soul is in bliss, guiding his loved ones and protecting them.

IMPORTANT NOTICE !!

Togo Mukherjee, brother of Dr Prithwindra Mukherjee, has passed away. It is a terrible loss to the world. He was a rare man of many accomplishments, and gave his best to the Respected Mother and his beloved Aurobindo community. He shall ever be remembered with admiration and love.

This was kindly donated by SRI NAVEEN ADVANEY.LETTERS WRITTEN BY SRI ANIRVAN TRANSLATED BY SUDIPTA MUNSISections of "SRI ANIRVAN'S LETTERS FROM A BAUL" have also been posted there.Please do NOT reproduce any of these scripts anywhere at any time, as they are all under copyright..THE BLOG POSTS ARE UNDER THE FORUM IN THE RIGHT HAND COLUMN OF THE MAIN PAGE

OUR GRATEFUL THANKS TO ALL OF YOU BLESSED DISCIPLES OF SRI ANIRVAN.

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RAMAA DIIt is fascinating to listen to Smt Ramaa Chowdhury reminiscing about Sri Anirvan. She is ninety years old now, and still looks beautiful. She was wearing a white Bengali saree with a delicate red border and motifs. We conversed in her living-room, presided over by Sri Anirvan holding a stout walking stick and smiling down from a framed photograph high on the wall. Anirvanji's wardrobe is in the room, and wooden shelves are filled with his books which he gave Ramaa Di. She showed me an inscription of her name written by Sri Anirvan in one book. She talked about her trip to Tokyo, Japan where she gave a lecture on Sri Anirvan at the meeting of the World Religions Organisation.

SMALL ANECDOTES ABOUT SRI ANIRVAN
Do you know why Sri Anirvan invariably wore a cap?
It was to conceal from view the protuberance on his head which is a sign of Buddhahood. It is round and raised, and it is to be seen on all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. To avoid unnecessary comment on this unusual bump on his head, Sri Anirvan preferred to wear a cap always, and was rarely seen without one.

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When Sri Anirvan passed away at 11:45 am on May 31, 1978, the whole of Fern Road where he was staying was filled with the perfume of an unknown flower, possibly a lotus. The scent lingered for over a full day.

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A Nepali boy that Sri Anirvan had known, tasted something new and in delight he exclaimed, "It tastes so sweet."
Sri Anirvan took pleasure in his joy, and remembered the words.
The day before he died, in "Aditi," the journal he was writing at the time, Sri Anirvan wrote -
"A cruel truth is that even the Maheshwar or the Great Lord has to be the bhokta or enjoyer. As on one hand that enjoyment is the poison turning the throat blue, on the other hand it is the ambrosia of Uma's body. There is no way of rejecting either of these. One who is able to enjoy both is verily Maheshwar or the Great Lord.
Maheshwar is verily the true enjoyer, for He alone is the connoisseur. To him good and bad, pleasure and pain, all are " honey-sweet."
This is verily what is Brahmaswad - the taste of Brahman or savouring by Brahman, whatever you may call it.
The intense heat of May - "Honey- sweet." The unbearable intestinal pain - even that is "honey-sweet."
The unuttered mantra of the whole day is this, "Honey-sweet, honey- sweet." - "Om Madhu, Om Madhu, Om Madhu."
My self-consciousness is "Madhu" or "Honey" - let it be pleasure or pain, whichever.
While in the body I am counting out pain like taxes, that too is honey.
One day I will not need to count it out any more - even that is honey.
"Om Madhu, Om Madhu, Om Madhu.
"I am Madhucchanda."
This was the last thing he wrote.

Anirvan or Sri Anirvan (Bengali: শ্রী অনির্বান Sri Anirvan) (July 8, 1896–May 31, 1978) born Narendra Chandra Dhar (Bengali: নরেন্দ্রচন্দ্র ধর) was an Indian/Bengali/Hindu monk, writer, Vedic scholar and philosopher. He was widely known as a scholar, and his principal works were a Bengali translation of Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine and the three volume treatise Veda Mimamsa

Sri Anirvan was born on July 8, 1896 in the town of Mymensingh, then a part of British India and now in Bangladesh.[1] His birth name was Narendrachandra Dhar. He was the son of Rajchandra Dhar, a doctor, and Sushila Devi. He was a spiritually and intellectually-inclined child, who by the tender age of 11 had memorized the Astadhyayi of Pāṇini and the Bhagavad Gita. He was named Baroda Brahmachari after going through the sacred thread ceremony. He also won a state scholarship as a teen and completed university IA and BA degrees at the University of Dhaka and an MA from the Sanskrit College of the University of Calcutta.

At 16, he joined the Assam Bangiya Saraswata Math ashram, located in the village of Kokilamukh near Jorhat in Assam He was a disciple of the ashram's founder, Paramahansa Srimat Swami Nigamananda Saraswati Dev, who initiated him into sannyas. Anirvan's new monastic name was Nirvanananda Saraswati.He taught at the ashram school and edited its monthly magazine Aryyadarpan. In fact, the Aryadarpan still retains the following Sanskrit epigram, in the Rathoddhata metre, that Sri Anirvan (then Srimat Varada Brahmacari) wrote:

Some time after 1930, Nirvanananda changed his name to Anirvan and ceased to wear the ochre swami's robes. He travelled widely in North India, eventually returning to Assam and establishing an ashram in Kamakhya near Guwahati. However, he continued to travel. In the 1940s, he lived in Lohaghat and Almora. Madame Lizelle Reymond documented some of this period in My Life with a Brahmin Family (1958) and To Live Within (1971). During this time, Sri Anirvan translated Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine into Bengali (as Divya Jeevan Prasanga); this book, his first, was published in two volumnes between 1948-51.

In 1953, Sri Anirvan moved to Shillong in Assam. His reputation as a Vedic scholar grew; and he wrote both in Bengali (chiefly) and in English (he was also fluent in French) on various aspects of Hindu philosophy (particularly Samkhya, the Upanishads, the Gita and Vedanta) and the parallels between Rigvedic, Puranic, Tantric and Buddhist thought.

His magnum opus, Veda Mimamsa, was published in three volumes in 1961, 1965 and 1970. This work won him the Rabindra award.

Though Sri Anirvan was a saint, he studied different subjects such as Marxism, nuclear science and gardening; yet he called himself a simple baul.

Sri Anirvan made his final move, to Kolkata, in 1965. He died on May 31, 1978, after a six-year illness

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SRI GOUTAM DHARMAPAL WISHES ME TO TELL YOU THAT HE IS AVAILABLE FOR ANSWERING QUERIES BY MEMBERS OF ANIRVAN AKASH REGARDING SRI ANIRVAN'S WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. YOU CAN CONTACT HIM BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 10 AM TO 12 PM. IN THE MORNING, AND BETWEEN 4 PM TO 6 PM IN THE EVENING.

OUR INDEFATIGABLE SRI GOUTAM DHARMAPAL, ON THE VERGE OF NINETY YEARS OLD, STAUNCH AND PERSEVERING DISCIPLE OF SRI ANIRVAN, CARRIES ON ALONE, GATHERING NOTES, TRANSLATING FROM GUJARATI (HIS MOTHER TONGUE) TO BENGALI, AND AGAIN TO ENGLISH, AND PUBLISHING ENOUGH MATERIAL FROM SRI ANIRVAN'S TALKS TO PUBLISH SIX MORE BOOKS, IS TO BE LAUDED FOR HIS DEDICATION AND INTENSIVE HARD WORK. ALL PRAISE AND CREDIT TO HIM!

On 6th February 1893 a young twenty-year old man with dark complexion and delicate health, Mr. Aravinda Acroyd Ghose landed at Bombay. He was returning to his Motherland from which he was deported at a very young age of seven to grow into a full fledged Englishman, of course to return to India and serve his motherland under the British Raj. During his long stay of thirteen years in England he grew into a great scholar and a poet, but frustrated his father by not passing his I.C.S. Exams by willfully not appearing at the riding examination. During the period he had already become a patriot and dreaming to free his motherland from the shackles of slavery. He was carrying in his pocket an appointment letter to work as the Secretary of Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwar of Baroda.

On 31st May 1893 another young man of bright complexion strongly built thirty year old Swami Vivekananda embarked on S.S. Peninsular from the same port of Bombay. He was going for the first time to the West, to Chicago, U.S.A. to attend the Parliament of Religions as a representative of Sanatana Hindu Religion (which he later called the Vedic or Vedant Religion). He was almost an unknown sannyasin on the ship (known of course to a few friends in India—rich as well as poor) going to an unknown country equipped only with his great knowledge of Western and Eastern Philosophy and of course with the direct blessings of his Master Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Mother Shardadevi—both of whom were still unknown in other parts of India apart from greater Bengal. On his return to India in January 1897 he was the most famous patriot Hindu Monk of Mother India—having successfully preached Hinduism in the West, both in U.S.A. and England, getting many western disciples. After his return to India, he again toured North and South of India receiving great ovations everywhere and at the same time giving fiery lectures rousing the sleeping mass of India, enlightening the heart of the young wherever he went. Gathering together the followers and disciples of Sri Ramakrishna, he established the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, established its Headquarters at the Western bank of the Ganga at Belur in Howrah just opposite to the Daskhineswar Temple where Sri Ramakrishna lived and not only because a Siddha in almost all the spiritual sadhanas of Hinduism but also practised the basic truths of all other religions—including Christianity and Islam—the two great modern missionary religions and realized that fundamentally all the religions teach the same divine Truths irrespective of their different preachers and preachings.

During his short life of little less than forty years Swami Vivekananda tried to implant all these Truths amongst all as well as serving the poor and downtrodden masses of his motherland through education and healthcare by all the means at his command. He suddenly passed away on 4th July 1902.

During all this time Aurobindo Ghosh was working with the Maharaja of Baroda first as a probationer in the Settlement and Revenue Department and some secretarial work of the Maharaja and later at his own request as Professor of English at the Baroda College where he was elevated to the post of Vice Principal. He was passing the rest of his time in deeply diving in the ancient and mediavel Sanskrit literature. He was also learning his mother-tongue Bangla of which practically he had no knowledge before he returned to India in 1893. And of course he was greatly nvolved in writing strong patriotic essays, as well as writing poetry which he had started writing since he was a boy of 14. In later times when he was asked what he would like to call himself, he emphatically said “A Poet and a Patriot!” Of course during this period at Baroda he had already started to work for the secret revolutionary societies—his two main associates in this field being his younger brother Barin Ghosh and Jatindranath Bandopadhyay whom he had got admitted in the army of the Baroda State—the first Bengali perhaps to take up an army post under the British Rule!

By April 1901 he had married a young Hindu girl, Mrinalini Devi, daughter of Bhupal Chandra Bose, after advertising in the newspapers.

But till now there were no signs of the future spiritual or yogic sadhana. May be he had started to practice some yogasanas—but that too mainly to get physical strength—which he felt very necessary for his future work of freeing the Motherland—he having a very delicate health from the young age just the opposite of Narendranath Dutta—future Swami Vivekananda.

Aurobindo Ghosh came out in open public political life only after 1905 when Lord Curzon divided the great Bangla Nation which included most parts of present Bihar and Orissa in the East and spread out in the West upto Burma (now Myanmar) and Assam. He left Baroda for good in 1906 and joined the New Nationalist Party of Indian National Congress led by prominent leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak of Maharashtra, Lala Lajpat Rai of Punjab and Bipin Chandra Pal of Bengal and others which professed a programme of complete Non-Cooperation with the British Government and Boycott of British and foreign goods and the fostering of Swadeshi, Boycott of British Law Courts, Boycott of Government Universities and Colleges and establishing of National Colleges and Schools along with a policy of Passive Resistance in all fields of life. Of course though the movement was started vehemently, it did not last long at the time for the country was not yet ripe enough for such a bold programme which was successfully led later by Mahatma Gandhi from 1920 onwards. But that is another story.

At first Sri Aurobindo came over to Calcutta and joined the newly founded Bengal National College as the Principal, but a little later left it due to difference of opinion with the Committee Members and took up the work of editing Bande Mataram founded by Bipin Chandra Pal and Mallick Brothers in January 1907.

In 1907, Sri Aurobindo was arrested and prosecuted for sedition but acquitted—the time when Rabindranath Tagore greeted him with his famous poem—“Aravindo Rabindrer Laho Namaskar!” But this brought out Sri Aurobindo in open politics and to lead the Bengal Nationalist Party, to appear on public platform for the first time as a speaker too.

But during all this time his yoga practice was going on which he had begun since 1904 onwards with Pranayama as his main sadhana. He used to do Pranayama for 6 hours daily till he discontinued it after he fell seriously ill in 1907. The only outward help he received during this period of yoga practices was from one Maharastrian Vaishnava Yogi—Vishnu Bhaskar Lele from whom alone he had taken any formal Diksha or Mantra and practiced meditation. But practically speaking during all this time Arvinda Ghosh took no interest in philosophy as such or in the Ramakrishna Mission Movement which was slowly spreading all over India after the passing away of Swami Vivekananda. He was interested in the Sayings of Ramakrishna and the speeches of Swami Vivekananda but that was almost all with regards to spiritual life as such. He considered their teachings to be a retreat from life in spite of their talking about service to the poor and the downtrodden. [Just like Bandhu Dharmapal (Babubhai Shah) who did not even want to read the complete works of Swami Vivekananda in late nineteen thirties when they were widely available because Swami Vivekananda was a Sannyasin-advocate of total renunciation from mundane life.]

The total dedication to yoga and spiritual life developed in Aurobindo Ghosh only during his Jail life from May 1908 to May 1909—after his conscious spiritual experiences—and matured only after going to Pondicherry after receiving the inner command.

The main points of Swami Vivekananda’s ideals and objects of life in this world can be summed up in his own words as under:—

Each soul is potentially divine. The Goal is to manifest the Divinity within by controlling Nature, external and internal.

Do this either by Work or Worship or psychic control or Philosophy—i.e. through Karmayoga, Bhaktiyoga, Raja-yoga or Jnanayoga. This can be done by practicing one or more or all of these—and Be Free. Mukti—Freedom from life is the main object of life.

For Swamiji life is either a dream or an illusion—Maya. To come out of this Ignorance and be established in Knowledge till the end—death comes and then to enter into Nirvana of the Eternal or Freedom—Moksha is the goal of this life.

Whereas the main principles of Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga are—

1. To open one’s self to a greater divine consciousness through faith—sraddha and Aspiration—Abhipsā.

2. To rise to this power of Light, Truth and Bliss through constant and continuous Surrender—Samarpana.

3. To discover one’s True Self and remain in conscious and constant union with the Divine.

4. To bring down the higher Supramental force in the whole being—Physical, Vital and Mental and transform one’s self into the Divine Being—in Truth and Harmony—Satyam-Ritam or Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram as well as Anandam—Truth, Beauty, Goodness and Bliss and thereby help in establishing Life Divine on this Earth.

For Sri Aurobindo, this Life on Earth is neither a chimera nor an illusion nor a dream but a field for evolving Life Divine—an evolutionary process is going on from Inconscience to Divinity through Matter, Life and Mind—from physical mind to Supermind!

Thus Freedom, Liberation—Moksha or Emancipation or Extinction—Nirvana is not the goal of this life but transforming this life into Life Divine is the main goal of life for Sri Aurobindo.

“What you say about the Ramakrishna Mission is, I dare say, true to a certain extent. Do not oppose that movement or enter into any conflict with it. Whatever has to be done, I shall do spiritually, for God in these matters especially uses the spiritual means & the material are only very subordinate. Of course you can get into that stream, as you suggest, and deflect as much as you can into a more powerful channel, but not so as to seem to be conflicting with it. Use spiritual means chiefly, will & vyapti. They are more powerful than speech & discussion. Remember also that we derive from Ramakrishna. For myself, it was Ramakrishna who personally came & first turned me to this Yoga. Vivekananda in the Alipore jail gave me the foundations of that Knowledge which is the basis of our sadhana.”

According to records Sri Ramakrishna first came to Sri Aurobindo during a planchette session in 1907 and instructed him ‘to build a Temple to the Mother’ and as if took charge of Sri Aurobindo’s new Yoga-Sadhana. It must be Sri Ramakrishna who sent Swami Vivekananda to Aurobindo Ghosh in Alipore Jail to instruct him about the various stages of consciousness etc. See, Uttarpara Speech of Sri Aurobindo. Sri Ramakrishna again appeared to Sri Aurobindo at Pondicherry in 1912 and again in 1913 for the last time, saying he will not come to him (Sri Aurobindo) anymore!

Of course all along, Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual life was guided and controlled by Sri Krishna. The only guru or guide in Sri Aurobindo’s yoga on the physical mundane level was the Vaishnava Yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele who gave him the mantra and guided him in his meditation in 1908 after Sri Ramakrishna came to Sri Aurobindo. After Sri Ramakrishna’s last visit to Sri Aurobindo, came to Pondicherry a remarkable Frenchman and his wife, Paul Richard and she who is now known as Sri Mira Devi. They had been in search for years of a Master in whom they could recognise a World-Teacher! After her second and final coming to Pondicherry in April 1920, Mira Devi slowly became the Mother of the Ashram, taking complete charge of Sri Aurobindo Ashram after 24th November 1926 when Krishna Consciousness descended in the physical consciousness of Sri Aurobindo and he retired to silent life for intensive yoga for the descent of Supermind.

Sri Aurobindo continues in his letter to Motilal Roy, “The error of the Mission is to keep too much to the forms of Ramakrishna & Vivekananda & not keep themselves open for new outpouring of their spirits—the error of all “Churches” and organised religious bodies. I do not think they will escape from it so long as their “Holy Mother” is with them. She represents now the Shakti of Ramakrishna so far as it was manifested in his life. When I say do not enter into conflict with them, I really mean “do not enter into conflict with her”. Let her fulfil her mission, keeping always ours intact and ever increasing.” Page 179, Vol 36, Complete Works, Autobiographical Notes.

The situation did not change even after the passing away of Sri Sharada Ma in July 1920—a few months after Mother Mira returned to Pondicherry on the final call of Sri Aurobindo after the passing away of Mrinalinidevi, wife of Sri Aurobindo in 1918 at Calcutta. Sri Aurobindo had called her to come to Pondicherry and be of help in his yoga. Sri Ramakrishna Mission Movement simply spread more and more in different parts of India and in the West. As the movement was led by the Sannyasins of the Ramakrishna Order, Ashrams with exclusive temples with idols or pictures of Sri Ramakrishna, Sharada Ma and Swami Vivekananda – the Trinity were established, Puja and worship were conducted proclaiming Sri Ramakrishna as an Avatara—‘avatar-varisthay’—best of avataras—of this age. Sri Aurobindo himself acknowledged him as such an Avatara—Incarnation of God—in one of his writings in Bande Mataram.

In Pondicherry after the return of Miradevi from Japan in April 1920, The ‘Arya’ monthly which Sri Aurobindo had started publishing since 1914 was discontinued. During this period Sri Aurobindo had published most of his major philosophical and yoga works. After going into total seclusion from November 1926, Sri Aurobindo intensified his Sadhana of bringing down the Supramental Consciousness to the physical level. Apart from giving Darshan to the devotees four times in a year, he kept in touch with the disciples only through correspondence—personally meeting only a few persons in between. Mother Mira took the charge of the Ashram. Everybody had to approach Sri Aurobindo through the Mother. She was the Shakti to whom all had to surrender. He said, ‘Surrender to her is surrender to me as well—as We are One as Shiva & Shakti.’

By 1950, Sri Aurobindo saw that the time had come for his entering into the Inconscient to transform it, otherwise no progress can be possible. So in spite of Mother’s remonstrations, he left his body on 5th December 1950. When he left the body, his physical body remained illumined by Supramental Light for five days—bright enough for all to see.

Mother Mira continued like Sharda Ma for the next twenty-three years to fulfil the promise of Sri Aurobindo for the Descent of the Supermind in the Earth Consciousness. It is said, Supermind descended to the Earth in February 1956 but again receded as the people round about were not yet ready to receive It. Mother herself left her body on November 17, 1973 struggling very hard to transform the cells of her physical body.

But what is the situation now? Where do we stand? Are we not clinging to the Forms of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother? Is not Sri Aurobindo’s Movement too turning into a ‘church’? That is the question we have to ask ourselves. Each of us have to dive deep in Sadhana, to realize the Divine Self—ātmā—within our own selves first and foremost and realize the Divine everywhere, continuing with the process of purifying and transforming our total Being—physical, vital and mental.

Let us not be turned into an exclusive ‘church’ like the Ramakrishna Mission Movement. We should be inclusive of all, especially Sri Ramakrishna as we directly derive from him. There is not at all the question of conflict and opposition. It is rather the matter of amalgamation—not necessarily—institutionally—rather in spirit of Brotherhood.

A POEM BY GOUTAM DHARMAPAL

ANIMALS = MAN + AILS

We are all ANIMALS

Bring out MAN from them

Leave all AILS behind

And find the MAN

MAN of the MIND

Maner Manush.

That is HE

HE is THAT

THAT Are YOU – Thou art That

Tat Tvam Asi - That Thou Art – (Kala, part one sixteenth part of the moons disc!)

I too am THAT

THAT is BRAHMA

I am Brahma

Aham brahmaasmi

THAT I AM

SO(A)HAM asmi

That is Real Man

MAN That Is GOD

Photos

POETRY BY DR PRITHWINDRA MUKHERHEE, ABOUT SR ANIRVAN, WELCOME TO MEMBERS

With a simple, daily click of the yellow "Click Here to Give - it's FREE" button at The Hunger Site, visitors help provide food to those in need. Visitors pay nothing. Food is paid for by the site's sponsors.
Please remember to click every day to give help and hope to those most in need. Every click counts in the life of a hungry person.

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Dear friends, We call upon all Sri Anirvan 's disciples and followers and those who knew him. We call upon people whom Sri Anirvan taught at Allahabad. People who met Sri Anirvan at Kasardevi near Almora, where Sri Anirvan lived for some time. We call upon disciples of Brahmachari Sri SatyaDev at the Sadhan Samar Karyalaya in CCU. Sri Anirvan had amicable correspondence with Sri SatyaDev. Most important are his Buddhist contacts in Kashi. We call upon all these people to come forward and tell of their experiences of this pure and noble saint, Sri Anirvan..

. Our lives will be greatly enriched thereby and blessed.

Gratefully, Mrinalini

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All spiritual experiences are sensations in the body. They are simply a graded series of sensations, beginning with the solidity of earth and passing gradually, in full consciousness, through liquidness and the emanation of heat to that of a total vibration before reaching the Void. - - Sri Anirvan

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INVOCATION TO SVARA byDr Prithwindra Mukherjee
Chevalier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
(France's Highest Cultural Honour) Shrouded by the folds of an endless Night,
Purusha – the Absolute – bored by his loneliness,
Willed Nature – Prakriti – to come out of her trance :
The Sound Divine – shabda-brahman – arose from silence
To give birth to âkâsh or cosmic Space.
Essence of touch – or sparsha - roused vâyu or Air
That, in contact with varna – hues – created agni, or Fire ;
Rasa – savour –turned it into jala or Water,
Permeated by gandha or smell, it became prithvi, Earth-matter.

Out of the vibrations of cosmic Space or anâhata dhvani
Appeared resplendent the seven svaras within the octave
Before pouring into seventy-two mélakartâs or modal scales.

Bhur… bhuvar… svar…
Ascent from the mûlâdhâra, at the root of the spine,
Piercing the six knots up to the Thousand-Petals
Swim upstream the seven rivers of the octave,
In quest of Savitur, the Sun,
To reach svarloka, realm where Indra reigns among gods.

Om shântih, shântih, shântih !

TRANSLATION OF A BAUL SONG BY DUDDU SHAH,

Hope is the very life of Nature,
Despair causes death.
Long years have I pondered about it,
Meted out the oil of hope;
At last I have known it for certain :
Hope is the most capital of quests.
An unshaken faith in the Absolute
Floods all being with a new elixir,
Everything is done under its intoxication
And is created progressively.
Without hope and without desire
No creation can ever survive;
Guru Lâlan warns : O Duddu,
Don’t you die of a death in despair !

In my book-shelf, there is a collection of the Bengali works - in prose and verse - by Rabindranath Thakur, complete in seventeen volumes, brought out on the 125th anniversary of the author’s birth. Popular as Robi Thakur, he lived during the last thirty-nine years of the 19th century and the first forty-one years of the 20th. At the age of fifty, Thakur is said to have translated a selection of his poems into English and published them under the signature of Rabindranath Tagore but, in spite of receiving a coveted award like the Nobel Prize in 1913, he was more of a traitor than a translator of his own poetry : quite indifferent to the aesthetic specificity of his prosody intimately married to the semantic excellence of the compositions, he wanted to avoid hurting the puritan English-reading public with the initial ornamented presentation of his poems. Fortunately the number of his works thus “translated” represents rather a small portion of his total publications in Bengali.

Encouraged by the audacity of earnest translators who, down the decades, have successfully tried their art and science in bringing out Thakur’s original Bengali writings – often approved by the author - in other languages of India and of the world, since long I had been planning to test my merits in this craft. Author of an anthology of Bengali poetry in my French translation (in addition to some other similar exploits), I have also tried my hand in translating mostly French authors – René Char, Albert Camus, St-John Perse – into Bengali.

The chronological order of the poems helps the reader to appraise the blossoming of the poetic genius of Thakur. During his stay on the houseboat at Shilaidah in the 1890s, in close contact with the rural life of the subjects of his family estate, Thakur was in a mood to produce an interesting crop of short stories, along with the narrative groups of poems included in Katha ("Tales") and Kahini ("Legends") : though most of them are well known to the Bengali readers, I have not selected them for the time being. Thakur did not name some of his short pieces such as in Kanika (“Morsels”), even though each of them be a complete poem; I have taken the liberty of naming them. For obvious reasons, I have sacrificed the rhymes of the Bengali origin.

Thu May 23 07:13:42 2009

staff@kaurab.com
visitor_name: William Radice
I've looked through your website. The Rabindranath translation page by Prithwindranath Mukhopadhyay [Prithwindra Mukherjee] is an impressive and generous selection, and it's particularly good to see those youthful, erotic poems... The poems from Kanika are very familiar to me ...
William Radice

THESE VALUABLE LETTERS ARE AVAILABLE TO US THROUGH THE GENEROSITY OF HIS GRANDDAUGHTER SMT SHARMILA SEN, WHO HAS PRESERVED THEM AS LOVINGLY AS HER GRANDFATHER DID.

SRI SOURINDRA MOHAN AIKAT WAS THE ESTEEMED FRIEND OF SRI ANIRVAN FOR OVER FIFTY YEARS. SRI AIKAT RECEIVED HIS FIRST LETTER FROM SRI ANIRVAN IN 1948, AND UNTIL SRI AIKAT PASSED AWAY IN 1976 THEY CONTINUED WRITING REGULARLY EVERY WEEK TO EACH OTHER.

SRI AIKAT WOULD LOOK UP ALL THE REFERENCES IN THE UPANISHADS AND OTHER VEDIC SCRIPTURES RECOMMENDED BY SRI ANIRVAN, AND ASK HIM QUESTIONS REGARDING THE MATTERS WHICH HE FELT NEEDED EXPLANATION.

NEARLY EVERY WEEK HE VISITED SRI ANIRVAN, OFTEN TAKING ALONG HIS LITTLE GRANDDAUGHTER WHO CHARMED SRI ANIRVAN BY HER INTELLIGENCE AND UNDERSTANDING AT SUCH A TENDER AGE. HIS LITTLE GRANDDAUGHTER IS NOW SMT SHARMILA SEN, WHO HAS SO GENEROUSLY OUT OF HER LARGE HEART GIVEN THESE TREASURED LETTERS TO BE POSTED ON THIS SITE ANIRVAN AKASH.

OUR OVERFLOWING GRATITUDE TO SMT SHARMILA SEN FOR HER MAGNANIMITY, HER WILLING AND CHEERFUL COOPERATION AND CONTINUAL KINDNESS.

“There will be an upheaval.[i] There are signs to indicate its coming.

The year 1906 completes 5000 years of Kaliyuga,

and a new age has begun with the year 1907.

The upheaval will have developed well enough to be visible to all.

It will be complete in a further period of four to five years.

“The upheaval will be one of a revolutionary change, a great step;

the low will be raised and the high brought down.

There will be change, change, everywhere—

change in Government, change in our people;

new resolves, new thoughts, new ways for all actions.”

Sri Aurobindo

(Interview from India, Tamil weekly, 18 September 1909)[ii]

I- THE QUESTION

The earliest known intimation about the oncoming World War seems to have been proclaimed only in 1911, by Friedrich Bernhardi (1849-1930) in his bellicose book[i] : this Prussian general and historian looked upon war as “the law of the struggle for existence” or “a divine business”. An interview in September 1909 reveals that Sri Aurobindo spoke of “upheaval”, foreseeing happenings pretty close to a mahâpralaya. Does not this bring to the mind – of people familiar with strides of history around Sri Aurobindo – flashes of events preceding and succeeding this visionary uttering ? We must right now look into a number of events preceding this interview, before examining the succession of developments in connection with this prophecy.

II- PRECEDING EVENTS

In the context of events preceding Sri Aurobindo’s interview in 1909, we turn at random to Pandit Mokshada Charan Samadhyayi (1867-1924): this restless Brahman represented a leading figure of the Jugantar movement. Specialist of the Samaveda, he had spent long years in Benares to have a genuine schooling in Sanskrit classics and Vedic texts. G.C. Denham of the central Criminal Intelligence Department promptly observed : “The position of Benares as a centre of revolutionary activity is very similar to the position which it holds in the religious life of the Hindu inhabitants of India.”[ii] He mentioned it to have been a retreat for political refugees and, since the visit of B.G. Tilak in 1900, followed by the issuing of the Kalidasnewspaper, Benares was becoming a congenial spot for seditious activities.

Jatindra Mukherjee’s revolutionary associate Preonath Karar of Serampore – friend of Hrishikesh Kanjilal of Calcutta Anushilan and Mokshada – had founded an Ashram at Puri in 1900; in contact with Lokamanya Tilak, it had been helping his initiative to turn Benares and other Hindu shrines into seats of Extremist politics. Shortly before the launching of the dailyJugantar at a ceremony at Benares, Puri had instituted a religious procession in celebration of the advent of the New Era (yuga+antar). Sealy in his Report admitted : “It would be extremely rash to argue that the place has not been freely used by the anarchist for sealing the compact of many a vow against the Government or that it has not been a recognised place of refuge for the fugitive from justice or surveillance by the police.”[iii] Amarendra’s cousin, Natabihari Chatterjee (son-in-law of the great Surendranath Banerjee), was munsif at Cuttack; another cousin, Dhiren Mukherjee, taught at the Ravenshaw Collegeate School. Amarendra had a free access not only to the local patriots but, also, to the headmaster of this School (later Principal of the Ravenshaw College), Khirodchandra Ray Chaudhuri, who edited and published the “scurrilous” (to quote Sealy) daily, Star of Utkal. Khirodchandra’s son, Sukumar, practised as a barrister atCuttack and had married a daughter of Dr Aghore Nath Chatterjee “who was deported by the Nizam of Hyderabad for intriguing against the British Government.”

Several amongst Bengalis living in Benares were connected with the revolutionary movement in Calcutta, principally through a certain Suranath Bhaduri : this curious character was ultimately concerned in the conspiracy in Calcutta and afterwards he was suspected of selling information to the authorities. “One of the pioneers of nationalism in Benares,” in about 1902, Somnath published a book called Gangajal[iv]. It conveyed seditious catechism under the guise of religion. The writer, addressing Sri Krishna prays, “The mlechhas[v] are carrying away to their own country the riches and intelligence of India, and the Vedas (sacred books) and the religion of India are being trampled under the feet of foreign nations. Wilt thou come and uproot the mlechas and make India free ?” To this Sri Krishna replies, “I have come, descending upon India. The auspicious hour is here; in my name advance boldly like heroes.” Denham reminded that the reference here was to Sri Krishna’s promise in the Bhagavad Gita, the very verse which Suranath was to get adopted as the motto of the revolutionaryJugantar newspaper of Calcutta, early March 1906. Mokshada was Suranath’s associate.[vi]

As we have seen, before this paper – Jugantar[yuga= epoch+ antara=ending, shifting] –appeared, Mokshada sent Preonath Karar to Benares and, with the help of Suranath and Hrishikesh Kanjilal of the Calcutta Anushilan Samiti convened a public meeting as well as a meeting of pundits : on quoting from Hindu Astrology and Astronomy, they announced that the sinful Iron Age (kali) was over and it was henceforth the dawn of Yugantar or thedvapar-yuga. Hrishikesh further undertook a tour of pilgrimage to proclaim the advent of the New Age, inciting sannyasis to join an imminent rebellion against the English.[vii]

By September 1905, inspired by Sri Aurobindo, several ministers of Hindu religion had been spreading anti-Partition agitation. A.C. Banerji, Barrister-at-Law from Santipur in Nadia and a friend of Jatindra Mukherjee, obtained collaboration of the Nabadwip Pundits and Goswamis : their influence, throughout India, had been rousing the religious scruples of both Hindus and Muslims against the impurity in the manufacture of salt and sugar, as much as their boycott of foreign goods. As we shall presently see, Mokshada was a close collaborator of Kartik Datta hailing also from Santipur. Led by Mokshada, the Bhatpara Pundits in the 24 Parganas also sent out missionaries to indoctrinate their colleagues in Upper India. At Puri in Orissa, one hundred itinerant monks took the oath of preaching Swadeshi. On 28 September 1905, fifty thousand people before the Calcutta Kali temple took the vow of abstaining from purchasing foreign goods. The Ramakrishna Mission and the Arya Samaj considerably helped spreading this doctrine.[viii]

Denham watched intently Mokshada’s shuttling between Benares and Uttarpara College where he was appointed Pundit. In company of Professor Charu Chandra Ray, Preonath Karar and Satish Sen, Mokshada was busy animating clubs and associations in the region covering Chinsura, Serampore, Chandernagore with the teachings of Bankimchandra Chatterjee (who had lived in the region), Yogendra Vidyabhushan and other contemporary thought leaders. He frequented the well-known revolutionary monk Tarakshepa who, sermoning on the Bhagavad Gita,preached sedition overtly, whose disciple Nanigopal Sengupta was one of Sri Aurobindo’s close associates. At Serampore, Brahmabandhav Upadhyay was attracted by Mokshada’s ideas on politics, and accepted him as disciple to run the local Brahmacharya Ashram. Simultaneously, informed about a dynamic batch of students in the neighbouring 24 Parganas, Mokshada visited Chingripota, Harinabhi, Kodalia, where Harikumar Chakravarti, Naren Bhattacharya (future M.N. Roy), Saileshwar Bose, Satkari Banerji ran a powerful association. Harikumar was in touch with his cousins, Naren and Phani Chakravarti, who had been to school with Barin Ghose at Deoghar and worked in the bomb factory there, run by Barin and Jatindra Mukherjee. One of Barin’s cousins, Hemendraprasad Ghosh, wrote that Mokshada occupied a room at the Field and Academy founded by Upadhyay, by the side of the Calcutta Anushilan Samiti, at 49 Cornwallis Street : here he knew eminent inmates like Benoykumar Sarkar and Radhakumud Mukherjee. At times, Mokshada shared his room with Naren Bhattacharya and Harikumar, till they found shelter at the main Anushilan building itself, while Naren’s cousin Abi Bhattacharya with adventurous Barin and some other like-minded friends were moving to a centre of their own choice, fed up with the Anushilan disciplines, enhanced by the proximity of Jatindra Banerjee (who was soon to leave Bengal, garbed as Niralamba Swami).[ix]

Mokshada was naturally in close touch with all that was advanced in Indian politics and at the ‘Academy and Art Club’, which was financed by Subodh Mullick, meeting all the leaders of the new movement. In December 1906, Subodh Mullick convened in his house the first conference of district leaders of the secret association, presided over by P. Mitter and attended by Sri Aurobindo, Bhupendranath Datta, Jatindra Mukherjee, Lalitkumar Chatterjee, among others. “The participants were asked if they had already taken (…) the oath of the party. The form and language of this oath had a denominational touch, based essentially on Hindu belief… In this conference Aurobindo addressed the members and explained the necessity of money – which could, then, be secured only through dacoity. He of course said that whatever money might thus be obtained should be regarded as loan from the victims of the dacoities to be repaid after independence. The suggestion was accepted unanimously. A similar conference was held in 1907 in the same house.”[x] Taking a post of Sanskrit at the National College, Mokshada became Sri Aurobindo’s colleague. Denham believed that it was Mokshada who incited the strike on the East Indian railway between Howrah and Ondal.

Prosecuted for sedition, when Brahmabandhav Upadhyay died in jail in October 1907, Mokshada looked after Upadhyay’s sarcastically anti-British journal Sandhya. At this juncture, a few months before the Surat Congress, Suranath formed a central committee at the Sandhyaoffice with the help of his disciple Jatindra Banerjee (who succeeded Upadhyay as editor) and Kartik Datta; Sri Aurobindo, Mokshada, Shamsundar Chakravarti, Tarakshepa, Annada Kaviraj, Jatindra Mukherjee and some others were among the members; they all seemed to share Upadhyay’s political views.[xi] While on 6 December 1907, Barin’s men attempted to wreck with explosives the Lieutenant-Governor’s special train at Naraingarh, on the same evening, arranged by Mokshada, Naren Bhattacharya, Bhushan Mitra (Gulay) and Sailen Basu committed a hold-up at Chingripota Railway Station, and were arrested. Jatindra Mukherjee appointed his friend, Barrister J.N. Roy, to defend them. They got discharged.

Earlier, in 1907, Indra Nandi – in close connection with Sri Aurobindo – sent members ofAtmonnati Samiti, including Pabitra Datta and Chuni Mitra, to found at Benares the Matri Sebak Samiti. “This is distinctly suspicious,” mentions the Police report. A few days before Khudiram and Prafulla Chaki set out for Muzaffarpur, associating with the Jugantar and theSandhya gangs, in May 1908, Suranath returned from Calcutta to establish a local branch of the Anushilan in Benares, with the help of his “Tantrik disciples” : Debnarayan Mukherjee, Sudhangshu Mitra and Sachin Sanyal, a student in the entrance class of the Bengalitola High School. Sachin kept “himself all along in the back ground and printed and circulated widely at Benares a seditious pamphlet on the occasion of the anniversary of Pratapaditya at the instance of the Bengali anarchists, in order to instigate the youths of Benares,” noted Denham. “Suranath induced Jatindra Banerjee and Mokshada to come over to Benares during the Puja holidays.” Mokshada advised the members of the party as to their future course of conduct. “Mokshada and a few other unknown men are trying to unite the extremists and the nationalists into one common bond of partisanship,” wrote Denham. “A plan is also under consideration to get the Mussalmans of Turkey and Persia to prejudice the illiterate Muhammadan mass of this country against the English and to send two or three clever English-educated Bengalis to Kabul in the guise of Mussalman fakirsafter making them versed in the Koran, and also to bring up after some time Arabindo Ghose either to Benares or to some other place for a secret consultation between him and Suranath.”[xii]

Raja Sasisekhareswar of Tahirpur, the principal man in the Bharat Dharma Mahamandal, had been fully converted to Suranath’s and Mokshada’s creed. Suranath was trying to influence the Maharaja of Durbhanga through his father, Somanath Bhaduri, Private Secretary to the Prince (who was the General president of the Mahamandal). Also through Amarendra Chatterjee, whose father-in-law, Preonath Banerjee, was the Maharaja’s General manager.[xiii] Shortly before the Maniktala arrests in May 1908, there was a split in the Jugantar, following Barin’s concentration on applied terrorism, leaving the theoretical preparation to others, such as : (a) under Sri Aurobindo’s guidance, Abi Bhattacharya took over the defunctNavashakti; (b) under Munsiff Abi Chakravarti’s influence, Nikhileshwar Ray Maulik controlled the Jugantar, shifting its office to 68 Maniktala Street, where Nikhileswar and Kartik Datta lived. Jatindra Mukherjee served as a link between these different trends. After the Maniktala arrests, the Jugantar articles under his direct influence became even more violent, causing several prosecutions, before collapsing in June 1908. Police Records show Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray’s eagerness to distribute the Jugantar, informing the editor that Jatindra Mukherjee knew him personally.

In June 1908, less than two months after the arrest of the Maniktala conspirators, a “new gang” commenced operations on the Eastern Bengal State Railway. The series of outrages began with a bomb thrown into a train. The Police experts held that the bombs used in these occasions were inferior to those prepared by Barin Ghose’s party; instead of dynamite or picric acid, these were coconut shell bombs with a mixture of sulphide of arsenic and chlorate of potash stuffed with bits of broken glass, nails, pins of jute combs, causing great injury on explosion. These outrages continued sporadically till April 1909. The Special Department of the Police traced them to a gang of Brahmans in Bhatpara, led by Kartik Datta and Naren Bhattacharya alias M.N. Roy, advised by Mokshada. On 4 March 1907, Kartik had distinguished himself by leading the attempt to murder a notorious missionary in Nadia. He and Mokshada took part in the dacoities, reported F.C. Daly “to raise funds for political purposes (…), defence of persons under trial in political cases.” Six persons were put on trial before the Special Tribunal of the High Court. Mokshada was one of them. The jury found him “not guilty”: he was acquitted for the second time. “A most dangerous character. He is still keeping up his connection with the most desperate ruffians of the revolutionary party (…) Sub-Editor of the Nayak,at present the most frankly seditious newspaper in Calcutta.”[xiv]

When Nikhileswar was arrested on 23 June 1908, it was Kartik’s turn to assume control of the party in charge of the Jugantar, with the printing press at 28 Shampukur Street. There was a house in Chetla for their secret meetings. Kartik was joined by Keshab De, who was just released after two years of Rigorous Imprisonment for having thrown vitriol during East India Railway strike in 1906. As a direct descendant of the old Jugantar group, Mokshada became their advisor. Several outrages were committed from Chetla, including the Bajitpur robbery (15 August 1908). Important among the participants were Noren Basu, Noren Chatterji, Bepin Ganguli, Annada Kaviraj, Suresh Mitra, Indra Nandi, Jatindra Ray. One of the older organisers of revolutionary work, Bhupati Charan Bose (1864-), son of Uma Charan Bose of Calcutta , was another associate of Kartik Datta and Mokshada. He was a “well-to-do broker for the German firm of Norlinger & Co” in Calcutta. Kartik moved his headquarters to Telinipara, near Chandernagore, before proceeding to the Bighati dacoity on 16 September 1908. At Bighati in Hooghly, noted Denham, a rich man opposed to swadeshiwas robbed. Immediate arrest of Kartik, Suresh Majumdar, Basanta, Pannalal Chakrabarti and Dhiren Ghosh, followed by the arrest of Mokshada, Suresh Mitra and Pannalal Chatterji (turned approver). Keshab absconded with the booty. Mokshada had in his possession some part of the ornaments stolen at Bajitpur in Mymensingh; certain jewellery he gave to sell to a goldsmith tallied in weight and description with a portion of the property stolen. Other participants were : Biren Mallik, Manmohan Barman, and Beharilal Ray. The Police recognised Mokshada, once more, as “the guru of the band, a recruiting agent, active participant in the dacoity.”

III—SUCCEEDING DEVELOPMENTS

Let us now analyse developments succeeding Sri Aurobindo’s interview in 1909. Let us take for its apex the international chain work that was devised in favour ofIndia’s freedom by Jatindra Mukherjee, Sri Aurobindo’s “right-hand man”, known in history as the Indi-German Conspiracy : it was to receive apparently a great blow (Jatindra died fighting against a detachment of armed police, at Balasore, in September 1915). Some historians were to consider this battle to be, however, the turning-point (“change, change” according to Sri Aurobindo ?) of the revolutionary Jugantar programme. Clinging to the Master’s vision, Jatindra believed that after phases of individual martyrs and guerilla risings, time would be ripe for the Mass Movement. Almost inadvertently carried all before one by the surging tide of revolution, Gandhi was to find himself holding the helm.

On rectifying our perspective, we recall that since May 1908 – after the individual martyrdom of Khudiram Basu and Prafulla Chaki leading to a number of increasingly repressive measures to terrorise the country, Jatindra had organised single-handed a spectacular fire-work of counter-repression consisting of various forms of hold-up and assassination of select anti-patriotic targets to rouse popular conviction in the revolutionaries’ action and to prove the extent of the Government’s helplessness. Directly related to the Alipore case, Jatindra’s men promoted or committed four daring murders: (1) August 1908 : approver Naren Gosain, inside the prison, leading to the hanging of Kanailal Datta and Satyen Basu ; (2) November 1908 : Sub-Inspector of police Nandalal Banerjee, in the streets of Calcutta, for having arrested Prafulla Chaki; (3) February 1909 : Public Prosecutor Ashutosh Biswas, inside the High Court, leading to the hanging of Charu Basu; (4) 24 January 1910 : Deputy Superintendent of police Shamsul Alam, dizzily active, with Biswas, to prove the guilt of the accused in the Alipore Case; he was shot dead in the corridor of the Calcutta High Court.[xv]

Without hesitation, James Campbell Kerr singled out Shamsul Alam for having “got up political cases and manufactured evidence, and that he was therefore justly removed. This view was evidently strongly impressed on the Chief Justice in the Howrah-Sibpur case.”[xvi]Nivedita wrote to Ratcliffe – reitering her comment on Asutosh Biswas – that Shamsul had deployed his inventive genius in supplying witnesses and training them so well that he became an asset for the Chief Justice. Sri Aurobindo in his Bengali reminiscences of the prison days has left a telling portrait of Shamsul. Shortly before this incident, one day, after his Tamil lesson, Sri Aurobindo had asked : “Do you know what is pirentir nat tatta kopta ?” And, quite amused, had comforted his flabbergasted listeners by supplying the answer : “This is how Birendranath Datta-Gupta is pronounced in Tamil.”[xvii] This proves that Sri Aurobindo had full knowledge of the mission Biren was to undertake. Gokhale was to inform Nivedita that Biren had been a favourite pupil of Father Brown of the Oxford Mission.[xviii]The District Magistrate of Khulna observed that henceforth, “The demeanour of the witnesses was a striking testimony to the terror which the gang has inspired.”[xix]

On 25 January 1910, “With the gloom of this assassination hanging over everyone”, Viceroy Minto made a statement concerning the successive waves of [counter-] terrorism that pushed his government towards more and more pitiless repressions and, in his speech, Minto paid – unknowingly – a tribute to the ‘new spirit’, incarnated by Jatindra Mukherjee, the supreme leader of the Extremist Movement, striving for the absolute political independence of India : “A spirit hitherto unknown to India has come into existence (…), a spirit of anarchy and lawlessness which seeks to subvert not only British rule but the Governments of Indian Chiefs…”[xx] Jatindra Mukherjee was arrested on 27 January 1910.

The Howrah Case involved charges against Jatindra and about fifty of his associates of waging war against the Crown and tampering with the loyalty of Indian soldiers. The Howrah-Shibpur unit was described as “the most active of all branches of the Revolutionary conspiracy”. Surjan Singh and Ramgopal of the 10th Jat Regiment stationed at Fort William of Calcutta were sworn members of this unit. When the soldiers under their command preferred not to cross the Ganges to attend meetings there. Jatindra arranged with Dr Sarat Mitra to receive them in Kidderpore. Since 1908, Surjan with Naren Chatterjee had been visiting barracks in Benares, Nainital, Lahore and Peshawar with credentials from the Party and the 10th Jat officers. Jatindra had developed this alternative contact as a complementary reinforcement to the efforts of Swami Niralamba, which was to be taken up by disciples of Swami Dayanand and Rash Behari Bose : Har Dayal had been proud of his schooling from these mentors. A number of officers of the 10th Jats regiment were court-martialed for complicity in sedition, before it was disbanded and the corrupt soldiers were court-martialled in secret. Singling out Jatindra as the “one criminal”, Hardinge wrote to Chirol : “The 10thJats case was part and parcel of the Howrah Gang case and, with the failure in the latter, the Government of Bengal realised the futility of proceeding with the former… Nothing could be worse (…) than the condition of Bengal and Eastern Bengal. There is practically no Government in either province.“[xxi] “(…) It is likely that Jatindra’s release put fresh heart into the people who had been contemplating further outrages but hesitating to act.”[xxii] Did not Sri Aurobindo warn : “The upheaval will have developed well enough to be visible to all” ?

On the break up of the Jugantar, Mokshada had joined Kartik, as advisor, sheltering party members, obtaining arms and disposing of stolen property. In spite of several charges, they were unanimously acquitted. Resulting from the Bighati case, there was a fusion between Jogen Tagore’s Bhatpara group and Naren Bhattacharya, “a notable personage”, intimate with Mokshada. Nixon mentioned seven major outrages between 22 June 1908 and 15 April 1909, committed by this group.[xxiii] At this stage, the Police found the Province divided up as follows:

Nanigopal and Jatindra had originally been members of the Calcutta Anushilan Samiti and acted consistently under Sri Aurobindo’s direct guidance, maintaining a constant collaboration. After quarrelling with Satish Basu, Nanigopal absorbed most of the members of Mokshada-cum-Kartik’s dispersed group, since the latter’s arrest. Amaresh and Satish Sarkar worked under Jatindra Mukherjee. Belonging to Indra’s group (Atmonnati), Bepin Ganguli, Noren Bose and Noren Chatterji, too remained available to Jatindra’s policy. These revolutionaries committed sixteen outrages between March 1908 and October 1909. Denham noted in 1909 on the Sarathi Jubak Mandali : “perhaps second only in importance to the Anushilan Samiti for the number of persons included in its ranks who actually took part in crimes of violence” : their spiritual guide was Tarakhepa alias Tarapado Banerji, the “mysterious Sadhu, who wandered about Bengal, being most frequently heard of in the districts of Birbhum, Nadia or in Calcutta.” He was disciple of Bamakhepa of Tarapur in Birbhum, “having possessed hypnotic power”. They collaborated with Jogendranath Tagore, “an undesirable member of the Tagore family”: his “influence with the revolutionary party is still considerable”; he served as a link “between the parties who work inBengal proper and theEastern Bengal, and theAssam dacoity gangs.” Denham knew that Kartik’s arrest was rather a shock to the members of this group.

Acquitted, Kartik was to be charged again with harbouring four of the revolutionary ‘bandits’, but again discharged by a Howrah jury. He was released on 27 December 1909, after having served a term of Rigorous Imprisonment in connection with the assault committed on Higginbothams as well as with the dacoities at Bajitpur and Bighati : leaders of the Nadia units – Jatindra Mukherjee and his uncle, the pleader Lalitkumar Chatterjee of Krishnagar - received him with a hero’s ovation, as recorded by the approver Lalit Chakravarti nicknamed Benga.[xxiv] On 30 March 1910, Benga confessed that even before the Netra outrage, he had spent one day at Nanigopal’s, before Suresh Majumdar alias Paran took him to a pleader of the Calcutta High Court. He spent there two or three days. The “Nimai chogra” took him by night train to Krishnagar. Nimai or Nirmalkumar was the son of the Government pleader Basantakumar Chatterjee, Jatindra Mukherjee’s uncle. He left Benga with the pleader Lalit Chatterjee’s mohurrir(clerk), Nibaran Chakravarti alias Keruda : the latter had bedding and food ready for Benga. Bholadanga zamindar’s son Manmatha Biswas “of our society”. After a few days, he returned toCalcutta.

In the meantime, Mokshada had gone back to Dhakain February 1910. In March 1910 an attempt was made to assassinate G.C. Denham of the Criminal Investigation Department and a very prominent figure of the Alipore conspiracy case. At the same time, a “Strictly Confidential” note[xxv] added to Denham’s report, mentioned that connection was established between Suranath and Amarendra Chatterjee, editor of the Bengali Karmayoginand esteemed associate of Sri Aurobindo and Jatindra Mukherjee; the mess at 133 Lower Circular Road of Calcutta, served Amarendra and Makhanlal Sen for “seeing and conferring with the notorious (sic!] Jatindra Mukherjee”.[xxvi] Amarendra sent Basanta Biswas to Benares. “In or about this same year (1910) Gyanananda Swami (Jogeshwar Mukherjee), a great friend of Mokshada, who was for sometime secretary of the Benares-based Bharat Dharma Mahamandal, was in correspondence with Amarendra Nath Chatterjee in Bengal.”[xxvii] Finding Bengal too hot to hold him, Jatindra’s associate Kiran Mukherjee visited Mokshada at Benares in 1911, and stayed with Sarada Maitra of Rangpur. Mokshada returned to Calcutta, in 1911: in February, the revolutionaries shot dead Srish Chakravarti, the head constable of Calcutta Police, who was a former member of theJugantargang, turned informer. According to F.C. Daly: “It is a singular coincidence, if it is only a coincidence, that this murder took place on the evening of the day on which Jatindra Nath Mukherjee (…) was set free from the dock at the High Court was strongly suspected in this connection. Descendant of Mokshada’s Bhatpara group, the Baranagar group reunited a series of small samitis (e.g. the Jubak Samiti with its clubs and poor fund) in the north of Calcutta and in Howrah on the other side of the river Hooghly and operated since 1907; they had contacts with Jogen Tagore, Mokshada and the Ramakrishna Mission.

Again, in December 1911, Mokshada was seen in Benares and, in the same month, an Inspector of Police was shot dead : the man was “in possession of information regarding a dangerous organiser of political dacoities named Pandit Mokshada Charan Samadhyaya.” E.H. Corbet, Superintendent of Police, noted that Mokshada “was a bosom friend of the Bengali police informer. The matter was referred to Government and I was sent to Benares to interview the Commissioner and Magistrate, with the result that he was arrested (…) A strong and elaborate case under Section 110(f), Criminal Procedure Code.” Mokshada was to have a conviction for three years; but it was decided after the Durbar – Coronation ceremony – to drop the proceeding. Mokshada was warned not to come back to Benares again.

Jatindra Mukherjee and Rasbehari Bose, however, visited Benares in May 1912 and associated with Sachin Sanyal, Mokshada and Suranath. Soon, Sachin became the sole regional leader. Vinayak Rao Kaple was one of its members. Sarada Maitra of Rangpur and Satish Mukherjee of Barisal frequently visited Benares; the latter associated with Mokshada the members of the Sebak Samiti. During 1913, Jogen Tagore led a series of dacoities; in 1915 he got contact with Bipin Ganguli’s followers including Probhas De and Harish Sikdar, and came to know members of other groups including Atulkrishna Ghosh and Ananta Haldar (all of them acting under Jatindra Mukherjee). Bipin was sentenced to five years Rigorous Imprisonment on2 August 1915 in the Agarpara Dacoity Case.

IV- FURTHER SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENTS

As an under-trial prisoner at Alipore Central Jail (1910-1911), Jatindra had knowledge of Bernhardi’s expectation that the Pan-Islamic current in the Middle Eastwould get a momentum by joining hands with the Nationalists in India. Inside the prison, Jatindra had an “opportunity of infusing more cohesion and a sense of oneness among the different groups from which the accused were drawn.”[xxviii] According to Sailendra Nath Ghosh – who, in the company of Meghnad Saha and other brilliant science students – received Jatindra’s guidance, “He inspired all who were associated with him in the revolutionary movement with sentiments of absolute personal devotion.”[xxix] An appreciative Nixon further enhanced these sentiments about Jatindra : “He seems to have had a most extraordinary influence over his followers, who looked upon him with something approaching reverence and awe.“[xxx]Home-interned, Jatindra managed, however, to meet the German crown Prince on visit toCalcutta and obtain from him a promise that in case of a general rising in India against the British empire, Germany could voluntarily help with arms and ammunition.

And Nixon noticed – with a touch of admiration – the rigorous command Jatindra had over the violence he had unleashed since 1908, before going to prison. For the Police, the year 1911 commenced a period of lull till Jatindra resumed activities three weeks after the declaration of the World War in 1914 : on 26 August, his men bagged fifty Mauser pistols with ample rounds of ammunition from the Calcutta store-house of the English gunmaker, Roda & Co. At once, Jatindra distributed them to various regional leaders.[xxxi] At this juncture, “Chatto” or Virendranath Chattopadhyay – on behalf of the Berlin Committee federating patriotic students from India – signed a contract with the Kaiser’s ministers confirming supply of arms : Count Bernstorff, German ambassador at Washington, received orders from Berlin to appoint Von Papen, the military Attaché, to charter and load steamers from the Californian coast for arms delivery on the coast of the Bay of Bengal via Far East. The Gadhar members joined the Berlin scheme and organised a massive return to India for participating in the rising. In a pincer’s movement, an expedition from Berlin led by Mahendra Pratap, on its way to Kabul, was to raise an army of liberation with Indian soldiers from various British regiments imprisoned by Germany, before storming the gates of Delhi; a more significant military base conceived by Taraknath Das and managed by the Gadhar from San Francisco had been waiting at the Thai-Burmese border to head for Calcutta, to occupy Fort William and proceed to Delhi.

At every step, Chatto’s men reached Calcuttato keep Jatindra abreast of the developments. In November 1914, Satyen Sen returned with Vishnu Ganesh Pingley, Kartar Singh Sarabha and an important batch of Gadhar members. Tegart recorded a further attempt to tamper with some Sikh troops at the Dakshineswar gunpowder magazine. The troops in question were the 93rd Burmans (a regiment which was to be sent to Mesopotamia). In addition to the efforts made by the Baranagore party in this direction, this had a certain amount of success : Jatindra Mukherjee with Satyen Sen visited the garden at Baranagore and interviewed these Sikhs.[xxxii]

Pingley had several talks with Jatindra Mukherjee who sent a note through him and Kartar Singh to Rash Behari Bose, towards the third week of December. Pingley informed Bose that four thousand men had already come from Americaand many more would arrive when the rebellion broke out.[xxxiii] From Benares, Bose sent Pingley with Sachin Sanyal to Amritasar to meet Mula Singh (who had received Satyen and Pingley at Shanghai). Invited by Bose to appraise the situation in the North and expedite preparations for the proposed rising, Jatindra with his family, Atul Ghose and Naren Bhattacharya set out “for pilgrimage” to Benares.[xxxiv]

On 17 June 1915, Naren Bhattacharya, Jatindra’s emissary, returned from his two months’ trip to Batavia, met the Leader at his hide-out at Kaptipada, near Balasore. Following instructions from Chatto, he made a satisfactory deal with the German authorities concerning financial aid and the supply of arms. Through the German Consul-General, Naren was put in touch with Theodor and Emil, busy running a plantation in Batavia. They assured Naren that a cargo of arms and ammunition was already on its way, “to assist the Indians in a revolution.” The Helfferich brothers gave Naren some money and, following Naren’s advice, arranged to send more to three addresses in Calcutta.

The Czech journalist Ross Hedviček admits that Jatindra expected to receive arms and other helps from Germany to free India. Had E.V. Voska not interfered in this history, today nobody would have heard about Mahatma Gandhi and the father of the Indian nation would have been Bagha Jatin. Voska learnt it through his network and, as pro-American, pro-British and anti-German, he spoke of it to T.G. Masaryk[xxxv]. Masaryk informed the Americans, the Americans informed the British. Bagha Jatin died in 1915. And India had to wait for another thirty years to have her democracy. T.G. Masaryk mentions all these facts in the English version of The Making of a State.[xxxvi]

V- CONCLUSION

When the Mass Movement attained its final form in August 1942, having considerably drifted away from the hard and fast non-violent (ahimsa) principles of the Chauri Chaura days, much of its details reminded of Jatindra’s own method of uprising : first of all, the very slogan – Quit India! – resembled more of a lion’s roaring than lending one’s cheek for a second slap. Point by point the Rowlatt Report can very well confirm the similarity between this programme and the insurrection planned by Jatindra in February 1915. Several guerilla risings following the model of Jatindra’s “first trench battle” had kept on inspiring the patriots’ will to victory :

(1) the encounter of revolutionaries with the armed Police at Telijana in Pabna, in 1917;

(2) the skirmish between absconding revolutionaries in Gauhati, on 7 and 9 January 1918;

(3) three militants fighting against the police till their last bullets at Kaltabazar in Dacca, on 15 June 1918;

(4) the successful guerilla fight seizingChittagongunder the leadership of Surya Sen in April 1930;

(5) the heroic encounter of Chandrasekhar Azad with the armed police on 21 February1931, in Alfred Park at Allahabad. Crowning all, the Indian National Army under Subhas Chandra Bose was fast proceeding with the blue-print left behind by Jatindra Mukherjee, commemorating the spirit of the rising in 1857.[xxxvii]

*

References

Political trouble in India: A Confidential Report, by James Campbell Ker, 1917, repr. 1973

“Notes on the Growth of the Revolutionary Movement in Bengal (1905-1911)” by F.C. Daly, D.I.G. Special Branch, Bengal, in Terrorism in Bengal[abbreviation TIB], Ed. Amiya K. Samanta, Director, Intelligence Branch, Government of West Bengal, Calcutta, 1995, Vol. I

“An Account of the Revolutionary Organisations in Bengal, other than the Dacca Anushilan Samiti” by J.C. Nixon, Home Department, in TIB, Vol. II

“Notes on Revolutionary Activity in Benares” by G.C. Denham, followed by a “Strictly Confidential” note by E.H. Corbet and “a few details added” by C.W.E. Sands in TIB, Vol. V

“Connections with the Revolutionary Organization in Bihar and Orissa, 1906-1916” by W. Sealy in TIB, Vol. V

[xvii]Smritikatha (‘reminiscences’) by Suresh Chandra Chakravarti, who was the younger brother of the first martyr Prafulla Chakravarti, killed in Deoghar during an experiment. Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, March 1962 p.32

[xxxv] Tomáš Masaryk (1850-1937), the first President of the Czech Republic that he founded in 1918. Also Zletopisu třetího odboje[Extract from the Records of the ThirdResistance] by Zora Dvořáková, Nakladatelství Hribal,Prague, ISBN 80-900-892-3-2.

A lump of gold am I in thy hands,
Thou canst melt me whenever it pleases Thee!
And if Thou doubtest my words,
Here I stand before Thee: put me to any test!
Make me dance to any tune Thou Likest,
Search my heart through and through
And lay thy doubts for ever.I acquiesce in everything that is prompted by thy heart:
‘Bravo !’ I cry to what happens here,
‘Bravo !’ I cry again to what happens there!
If Thou art sweet on me
And fondlest me in thy arms, my Love,
Or if Thou drawest thy sword and hack me to pieces
If Thou let me live or strangle me to death
“I am mad in Thy LOVE, O my Own “
Shall be The last words on my lips,
I acquiesce in everything that is prompted by thy heart:
“Bravo!”I cry to what happens here ,
“Bravo!”I cry to what happens there .

NEWS AND NOTES OF INTEREST

The Passing of Togo Mukherjee

December 15, 2012 at 10:07 am (

Dear Friends,

On Friday, 14 December 2012, at 4 p.m. Shri Dhritindranath Mukherjee, better known as Togo in the Aurobindonian community, has passed on to the Beyond three days after his seventy-fifth birthday. Born to Tejendranath (the eldest son of the famous revolutionary Jatindranath Mukherjee alias Bagha Jatin) and Usha Mukherjee on 11 December 1937, he visited Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry at the age of ten with his parents and two elder brothers, Rothindranath and Prithwindranath in August 1948. Before he left for Pondicherry, he had told his chums that he would not return to Kolkata. The three brothers were so enchanted by the divine atmosphere of Sri Aurobindo Ashram that they decided to stay back at Pondicherry. Accordingly they went to the Mother and informed her about their wish to stay in the Ashram. Not only did the Mother approve of their wish but also asked Usha Mukherjee to stay back to look after them. Thus, in October 1948, Togo settled in the Ashram with his two brothers and mother. Tejendranath joined his family in the Ashram a year later.

Dr. Prithwindranath Mukherjee, Togo’s elder brother, writes about his name: “Admiral Togo Heihachiro (1848-1934) was known all over the world as “Nelson of the East”. He was especially appreciated for his leadership in the Russo-Japanese war (1904-05): Indian nationalists looked up on him as the Asian Hero who proved his superiority by defeating a European power. Okakura had come to Kolkata in 1902 with the message of a Pan-Asiatic unity; Nivedita introduced him to the founders of the Anushilan Samiti; he was received with due enthusiasm by Indian nationalists. Japan occupied a privileged place in their heart. Three years after the Admiral’s death, my brother Togo was born in 1937; he looked like a Japanese baby. Out of love for Japan, Swami Satyananda (Bhavabhushan Mitra, a disciple of my grandfather) proposed to name him Togo. My grandmother was still alive and she willingly accepted it. In the Ashram school, though he was enrolled as Dhritindra, the Mother—fond of Japan, too—preferred to call him Togo.”

Togo was good both in studies and sports. In December 1951 he received the first prize from the Mother in a competition of stamps; he had drawn the symbol of Sri Aurobindo and arranged the appropriate stamps in such a way that Sri Aurobindo’s concept of Involution and Evolution was beautifully described. He was considered to be the Ashram’s all-time best Malkhamb performer and had won the Mother’s praise and encouragement for his performance. In 1958 he won the Boys’ Grey Group boxing championship.

He also participated in the dance dramas held in the Ashram. Once the Mother selected him for the role of Durga’s lion and on another occasion he was chosen by her as Agni, the god of Fire. She gave him the roles of Shiva and Adi Shankaracharya in the dance drama “The Spiritual Destiny of India” (directed by the Mother) which was held on 1 December 1955. Pleased with his performance she had remarked to him: “You had embodied fully the true spirit of Shiva. All your gestures were full of power and elegance.”

After completing his studies at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Togo joined Sri Aurobindo Ashram Hand Made Paper Department in December 1959. Soon the entire responsibility of the department was assigned to him and he remained its Incharge till 1967. In 1964 he was selected by the National Productivity Council for a prestigious French scholarship to study management in recognition for his outstanding achievement in the Hand Made Paper Department. He also played a significant role in re-organizing the Ashram Blanchisserie (Laundry). When the Ashram was attacked by a big mob on 11 February 1965 under the pretext of anti-Hindi demonstration, he defended the Ashram almost single-handedly and kept the attackers at bay till he was critically injured. He was hit by a steel lever on his head which fractured his skull.

The Mother has remarked about Togo in the following words:

“At 1 in the morning, I had to do another work, because one of our boys, T. [Togo] (that boy has the makings of a hero), almost single-handedly saved the clinic, but it cost him a fractured skull. At the time, they thought he was done for. They brought me the news, and when the news came I saw, I felt all of a sudden the other experience recede, and then that I was becoming the universal Mother with all the power of the universal Mother. And then, that T. became quite small, like this (gesture of something tiny in the hollow of the hand), and I held him in my hands—but he was all luminous, all luminous—I rocked him in my hands, telling him, “My child, my little child, my dear child…,” like this, and for several hours.

“That’s what saved him, I think. Because his skull was fractured, it had caved in; it had stopped just short of damaging the brain—the caved-in piece was inside, they had to operate, cut open, and remove it. It had stopped just short of the brain. So he will pull through. And I know that that’s what saved him.”

(Mother’s Agenda 1965, Vol. 6, pp. 30-32)

Shri Robi Gupta, noted poet and the youngest son of Nolini Kanta Gupta, had written the following poem on Shri Togo Mukherjee. Titled ‘Togo’, this poem was published in the May 1965 issue of ‘Mother India’, the monthly journal published from Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry.

TOGO

Bagha Jatin is but a legend to me.

For I have not witnessed his undaunted valour.

But to-night I am surprised to watch that boundless courage being displayed—

A firm stand against a hundred infuriated assailants.

He has proved well that the same blood runs in his veins!

The day was done and the night was unrolling the mantle of peace everywhere.

Slowly the pole-star shone out shedding lustre.

The Ashramites were all seated in deep meditation.

Opportunity golden indeed for the Devils to attack!

To force equality by death and devastation—what an ideal of perversity!

The enraged mob rushed close—hostile-instruments all athirst for blood!

The glasses clanged and the doors and hinges banged and fell broken!

The houses stood in fire and in a moment the dark sky turned red!

Deep in the heart man has blindly fostered the Devil to this day.

The messenger of heaven was burnt alive—the son of God crucified!

Ignorant minds cannot bear the pressure of the descending Light.

They mock and sneer seeking even to assail

As did the disturbing Rakshasas in the forests of the ancient Rishis.

Conscience seemed to be devoured by the Demon-head and Truth totally eclipsed!

Their motto: Better rule in hell than serve in heaven.

The powers of the earth, self-proud, fear the reign of gods.

The night saw not a sentry on duty, not a guard on his round.

They were all fast asleep with the magic spell cast by Demons.

How the phantoms of hell delight in destruction and laugh!

Ferocity incarnate, danger housed in human frames,

Freely they plundered, rained stones, none to stay their march.

“I will give them their due if God has given me the chance.”

An icon of youth and courage he shot out to oppose them and made them retreat.

A few reeled, a few fell flat on the ground.

Most ran helter-skelter for life.

Yet quite a band surrounded him and he fought his hardest.

Through the enemy array on the eastern front an Abhimanyu forged ahead.

But alas someone from behind armed with an iron-bar hit him right on the head.

He tumbled, tottered, vision failing.

A fatal stroke indeed, but Providence chose otherwise

At the healing touch of the Divine Mother he opens his eyes and smiles again.

To me Bagha Jatin is a legend.

But to-night I have watched, to my surprise, action that is bright with bravery.

[Translated by the poet from the original Bengali]

In 1967 Togo shifted to France with the Mother’s permission. In 1970 he joined Professor Jean Filliozat’s class in Philologie Indienne at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris, which was held at the Sorbonne University’s main building. A few years later he joined the International Medical Sophrology College at Paris and also studied at a Naturopathy Institute. He had also represented India, along with his eldest brother Rothindranath, at the 10th session of the International Olympic Association held in Greece in August 1970. In France he worked as a professional therapist with specialization in Exercise, Yoga, Acupuncture, Auriculotherapie, Reflexology, Lymphatic Drainage, Magnetisme, Hypnotherapy and Bioenergy for twenty-seven years till his return to India in 1994. He settled in Pondicherry where he gave free treatment to his patients as a service to the Mother.

Togo was a born fighter. The injuries which he received during the Anti-Hindi riot in 1965 gave rise to several complications in his health but he remained unperturbed. Neither age nor his illnesses could affect his undaunted spirit and delightful sense of humour. One could never fail to notice the fire of undying courage in his eyes. He was a sincere and dedicated practitioner of the Integral Yoga who never flaunted his inner spiritual life. He also made it a point never to disclose his spiritual experiences with anyone; only once he made an exception when a few months ago (on 18 May 2012 to be precise) he informed me about a darshan of the Mother which he had during the early hours of the day; he saw the Mother giving him prasad twice with her own hands.

Throughout his entire lifetime, Togo wanted to be nothing but an ideal instrument of the Mother and to work for the mission of Sri Aurobindo. When he was diagnosed with third stage cancer in April 2012 he was least perturbed. He accepted his illness as an act of the anti-divine forces and was determined to fight against them. And he did fight like a valiant warrior till his last breath. He was admitted to Pondicherry Medical Hospital on 11 December—on his seventy-fifth birthday—when his health deteriorated quite suddenly. For the next three days he fought a hero’s battle with Death. In the morning of 14 December, after his breakfast when the doctor suggested that he should be given a rice-tube to facilitate his eating, he flatly refused and expressed that he would prefer to leave. When the dedicated group of servitors who looked after him during his last months visited him in his cabin in the afternoon they found him to be fully conscious. He looked at them, lifted his eye-brows and even moved on bed. After they went out of his cabin at 3.30 p.m. Togo left his body quietly and peacefully at 4 p.m.

I met Togo-da for the last time on 5 December 2012 at his residence in Pondicherry and spent around ninety minutes in his delightful company. He looked quite fresh on that day. Before leaving, I hugged him and said that we would meet again soon. He smiled with a twinkle in his eyes. But I guess it was destined to be our last meeting.

Hero-warriors like Togo-da don’t die. They live forever in the hearts of their admirers.

I feel the joy of announcing the recent publication of the following two books by me. With this total number of books authored by me comes to 30. The World of Sri Aurobindo’s Creative Literature. Authorspress, New Delhi. Rs.600. 2013Sri Aurobindo could be a remarkable dramatist and fiction writer too apart from poet but he was either engaged as a secret revolutionary leader or a political leader in the open field; either professor, journalist, social thinker or a philosopher, doing yoga and…See More

Aju Mukhopadhyay is a renowned bi-lingual poet and writer who has authored a dozen books in Bangla and almost equal number of volumes in English. Currently he lives in Pondicherry, a place that has been hallowed by the spiritual presence of one of the most illustrious sons of Bengal-Sri Aurobindo. Mukhopadhyay’s latest book of verse entitled Insect’s Nest and Other Poems is neatly printed on good quality paper with an attractive cover page featuring wasps building their homes. The…See More

Comment: Mahapralaya- A history to remember and the revolutionary Jatindranath Mukherjee had a great role in his time. Quite India was more violent than non-violent. British left under compelling circumstances- the time was ripe- they could not stay on more so they left doing utmost damage to the country's integrity and some of the then leaders helped them. Subhas Chandra Bose's actions had great effect in pushing the British to vacate.Aju MukhopadhyaySee More

After a small story about awareness, Dr. Nalini Sahay leads you to a practice called Anuloma Viloma. To benefit optimally bring all your awareness and attention to this practice. Practice your awareness with this video. Dr. Nalini Sahay tells a little story about a camel and then leads you to the practice of Anuloma Viloma with visualisation.See More

THIS BOOK IS ALSO AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM WHICH SAYS -About the AuthorAju Mukhopadhyay is a poet, essayist, feature and fiction writer. His features and articles include those on travel, food, health and culture, festivals, on Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, on Nature, Spiritualism and Environment and many other subjects.…See More

That night when my doors were smashed by the storm, I did not know it was you who had entered my house. All around everything went black, the wick of the lamp was extinguished.
I stretched out my arms to reach the sky, towards hope..
I did not know it was you who had entered my house,
That night when my doors were smashed by the storm.
I lay there sobbing, thinking it all a dream,
How could I know that the storm was a pennant of your triumph?
Morning dawned, and I beheld you,
A fountain of tears, you, yourself.
The whole house, save for ourselves, was and had been empty.
I did not know it was you who had entered my house,
That night when my doors were smashed by the storm.

Sung by the famous singer Pankaj Mullick of the 1940s.http://www.esnips.com/doc/fb86d1e1-81db-4223-8f23-186f36793dfb/001.-aaji-jharher-raate_Pankaj-Kumar-Mallik
Art thou abroad on this stormy night
On thy journey of love, my friend?
The sky groans like one in despair.
I have no sleep tonight.
Ever and again I open my door and look out on the darkness, my friend!
I can see nothing before me.
I wonder where lies thy path!
By what dim shore of the ink-black river,
By what far edge of the frowning forest,
Through what mazy depth of gloom art thou threading thy course to come to me, my friend?

Right now busy in addressing J Krishnamurti's followers in India and abroad.Struggling to finish book on Adwait,Raman,Nisargadatt Maharaj,Jk

BY AJU MUKHOPADHYAY

,

- "I am thinking how so to fix the attention so it can be unwavering- never turns aside- Oh! What great a job-"

My interest in Sri Anirvan continues with greater intensity these days. I have read almost all the valuable translations of his writings appearing in the blogs.

Unfortunately I do not know any Bengali although ambitiously I got many of his writings from the Dharampal's when I met them some years ago.

BY VIKRAMAN BALAJI

request: it seems Sri Aniravan used to give regular talks on Sri Aurobindo's Savitri in the Pathmandir. It would be a great service if someone could translate these talks since Anirvan's insight would help clarify many aspects of Savitri.

Thanks again and best regards

Balaji

BY SHARAT KUMAR BHUSHAN

Di' I do not know why these lines by Hammarskjold are coming to my mind after reading your comment.

"Night!The road stretches ahead.Behind me it winds up in curves towards the house,a gleam in the darkness under the dense trees of the park.I know that,shrouded in the dark out there,people are moving,that all around me,hidden by the night,life is a quiver.I know that something is waiting for me in the house.Out of the darkness of the park comes the call of solitary bird:and I go-up there

BY SUBHASHISH BORAH

- We should be proud of what we are, and we should not be dejected at what we are not as we desire. We should be proud of what we are not that we didn't wish for.

But the horror is that we are starting to be proud of what we are not that we desire to be!

The philosophy is that if you are X, be proud of being X, and don't be dejected because you are not the most fortunate one of the world you may have a dormant desire to be so. And be proud for you are not the most unfortunate person in the world and you didn't, don't and will never desire to be so.

But don't be proud of your vain self-images, just be proud of what you are and realize it with optimum firmness. There is a difference between "Will" and "hope". Suppose you want to be something or somebody in this life time. You cannot become that, if you are not at this very moment not that something or somebody you want to realize.This should be dormant within you waiting just for expression or manifestation. When proper time, environment and other supportive factors will be available to you, and if you have the necessary will to be so, you will one day appear as such.

Let's be our realities, not our imaginations! Let's be free from our inner insecurities! And here I intentionally use the word to be 'proud' in place of simply to 'accept' oneself, because the fact of 'Will' cannot properly manifest through a meek humbleness or moral humility.."

- "It is the "sense of wonder" that as 21st century's "homo-fabers" or "homo-technicus" evolving(I doubt!?) far out of our real natures of "homo-sapience" we have lost and we have forgotten to be astonished at things beautiful and as well as horrific!! We have been oblivious of feeling strange at anything...

This sense of wonder I believe is the real essnce of all creativity not only poetry or other art forms but science, mathematics , physics, chemistry, biology etc everything...

It impels us to discover things"

BY ANIRBAN

NAMASTE,

"To all the members in this GROUP"

It's really a pleasure and an honour for me to be a part of this group.

I DO PRAY TO THE LORD OF ALL LORDS FOR QUICK RECOVERY OF GOURI-MASHIMA.

OH LORD, I think I am pretty LOUD and CLEAR.

ANIRBAN-AKASH - Is it a confirmation that our desires/DESIRE are(IS) fulfilled?

For though our desires may yet be fulfilled in this very human birth, do we really crave for our DESIRE to be satiated? If so, how do we enjoy THE ETERNAL LILA?

May we be firmly grounded whilst we touch THE AKASH (The SKY).

Best regards,

Anirban

BY SMT KALYANI BOSE

Dear Anirban,

I was not being able to come to the site for a very long time. Just today I opened it up to see your page and am inpressed. Are you or do you know Bengali? Of course you are because you have read His books. Your question about enjoying the ETERNAL LILA has evoked in my mind an expression form Sri Chaitanya Mahapravu. The Eternal Lila is like 'Tapta Ikshu Charvan' - Again 'Mukh Jwale NA JAi Tyajan-

Prosanti O prasannataye Ujjal Theko.

May the Grace of Sri Anirvan bring in us the Yuganaddha Dyavaprithivi.